The present invention relates to a nonvolatile memory cell having a capacitor formed by the use of a ferroelectric film, and also to a method of manufacturing the same.
With recent progress of the film forming technology, rapid studies are currently advanced in the application of nonvolatile memory cells each using a ferroelectric thin film. In the nonvolatile memory cell, it is possible to perform fast polarization inversion of a ferroelectric thin film and also fast rewriting effected by utilizing the residual polarization of the thin film. The nonvolatile memory cells with ferroelectric thin films being currently studied are broadly classified into a type to detect a change of a stored charge amount in a dielectric capacitor, and a type to detect a resistance change caused by spontaneous polarization of a ferroelectric. The semiconductor memory element related to the present invention belongs to the former type.